awards – Page 22 – The NEN – North Edinburgh News

Hampden hat-trick for Edinburgh College students!

Anti-racism treble for city students

Edinburgh College students came out top in the Show Racism the Red Card Scotland design competition, taking the top three spots in the Further Education category at an awards ceremony at Hampden Park last week.

Jennifer Grieve won the category, with fellow students Liam Philip and William Blake being highly commended for their designs. They are all studying NC Graphic Design at the college, and impressed judges with their poster designs interpreting the competition theme ‘Celebrating Diversity’.

Show Racism the Red Card Scotland runs an annual competition challenging young people to come up with a creative way of promoting their messages of anti-racism and anti-sectarianism.

The students were presented with their prizes by Liam Craig, the club captain of Hibernian FC, and Rangers FC’s Bilel Mohsni.

More than 4,000 young people across Scotland took part in this year’s competition with entrants coming from as far as the Isle of Skye and Dunoon as well as schools in the central belt. The competition sends a clear message that young people want Scotland to be a welcoming and multi-cultural society.

The students’ lecturer, Helena Good, said: “I am delighted that our three talented students were recognised with awards by Show Racism the Red Card Scotland. I was very impressed by the quality of the poster designs they produced, which really captured the core of the campaign’s anti-racism message using exciting well-thought-out visuals.”

Vicki Burns, campaign manager for Show Racism the Red Card, said: “I am amazed at how creative our young people can be in finding ways to get the anti-racism and anti-sectarianism messages across. Everyone participating in the competition should be congratulated for their inspirational work. The 4,000 young people who took part in the competition are giving Scotland a clear message – the country they want to live in has no room for racism and sectarianism.”

Art and Design students at Edinburgh College are given a range of opportunities to develop their practical design skills through entering design competitions and taking part in design challenges. HND Visual Communication: Graphic Design students take part in a yearly one week design challenge with design briefs set by high profile organisations such as Innis & Gunn, Cutty Sark Whisky and Edinburgh Zoo.

Edinburgh College offers a range of art and design courses, from entry level courses for students with additional needs to HND level courses in illustration, graphic design and 3D animation. Applications are currently invited for these courses and more than 900 other courses across the curriculum offered by Edinburgh College and starting in August on its four campuses.

See www.edinburghcollege.ac.uk for more information on how to apply.

A sporting first at Trinity Academy

TRINITY ACADEMY SPORTS PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR AWARDS

The inaugural Trinity Academy Sports Awards that took place on 25 March can be labelled a resounding success with over 170 pupils and parents turning out to celebrate sporting achievements at Trinity (writes S6 student Ryan Crombie).

Guests enjoyed a captivating evening during which a whole range of sports were recognised, ranging from Tae Kwon Do to Sailing! Those who attended were also treated to musical performances from Hayley Scott and Charlie West throughout the night.

A special thanks has to go to our guest, former boxer Alex Arthur MBE, (above) who was kind enough to present all of the awards to the respective winners and made what was already a great night that bit more special.

Carol Graham, Depute Head Teacher and Allan Spencer, Curriculum Leader for PE were also individually rewarded on the night for their many years of hard work and dedication to Hockey and Rugby respectively.

Congratulations goes to all of the winners for the various awards, the nominees and of course the winner of the Trinity Academy Sports Personality of the Year, Eartha Cummings for her achievements with the U-17 Scotland Football team (pictured top).

Article by Ryan Crombie (S6)

Pride of place: national award for North Edinburgh Grows

‘inventive, playful, life-enhancing and civil-minded. It is a worthy winner.’ – My Place Award judges

North Edinburgh Arts has won a prestigious national award. The Scottish Civic Trust has recognised the arts centre’s garden project North Edinburgh Grows with the My Place Award 2015 (writes Dave Pickering).

Kate Wimpress, Director at North Edinburgh Arts, and Lachlan Stewart, from Anta Architects who designed the garden, received the award from Minister for Local Government and Community Empowerment Marco Biagi MSP at a ceremony at the Lighthouse in Glasgow on Thursday.

The Scottish Civic Trust is the national body for the civic movement in Scotland and the My Place Awards is a unique scheme that celebrates good local design and conservation as nominated and evaluated by local people. The Awards are supported by the Scottish Government.

The My Place Award project category recognises buildings, landscapes, public realm and civic projects that have had a positive impact in local neighbourhoods and delivered tangible benefits to their communities.

Judges said: “The North Edinburgh Grows project is both inspiring and humbling. In the face of many challenges the designers, client and local community have transformed an unloved bit of land into a remarkable resource for local residents and visitors. It is exactly the sort of project which the My Place Awards were set up to acknowledge – inventive, playful, life-enhancing and civil-minded. It is a worthy winner.”

North Edinburgh Arts Director Kate Wimpress was delighted to receive the award on behalf of the project. She said: “NEA and the North Edinburgh Grows team would like to thank all members of the community and local organisations who have contributed so much to the success of the garden.

“This award is a recognition of everybody’s hard work and enthusiasm. If you would like to be involved with the garden please contact Valla, our Community Growing Coordinator, directly at northedinburghgrows@gmail.com“

You can follow the North Edinburgh Grows blog here: northedinburghgrows.wordpress.com

The My Place 2015 Exhibition celebrates Scotland’s places, people, community projects and civic champions. It runs at the Lighthouse until 6th May. For full details about the awards and exhibition go to: www.myplaceawards.org.uk

Read all about it: local Forum lifts literary prize!

We-CTV Award for North Edinburgh Young People’s Forum

North Edinburgh Young People’s Forum (NEYPF) has won second prize in a national competiton organised by the Scottish Youth Parliament. Josh, Laura and Brandin’s entry was the only submission from Edinburgh to win an award at this week’s presentation ceremony (writes Dave Pickering).

Launched last June, the We-CTV Competition asked young people to address issues of interpersonal violence in communities. Groups were asked to produce a piece of creative work on themes like knife crime, abuse and online bullying in one of three categories: Art (drawing, painting, textiles), Literary (creative or discursive writing) or Multimedia (video or audio).

NEYPF decided to take part in the competition and agreed to write a piece on bullying.

It’s been a long process. Entrants were first asked to submit an expression of interest by the end of August 2014. The creative concept deadline was 31 October and a National Creative We-CTV Production Day took place on 11 November, giving entrants an opportunity to meet with creative experts and share ideas. The final submission deadline for ‘creative solution’ entries was 16 January and this was followed by an online vote.

The group has had an anxious wait since voting closed on 8 February, but the NEYPF were rewarded for their hard work when they were announced as runner-up in the Literary category at Wednesday evening’s awards which were held in Glasgow’s Film Theatre.

Josh Ward (13), Laura Hulbert (14) and Brandin Sharpe (13) – all of whom took part in a training session with NEN last Autumn – attended the gala event with NEYPF youth worker Danielle Ward and were delighted to win second prize in their category. As well as the Award, each team member received a certificate and vouchers from Pizza Express and Vue Cinemas.

Their certificates read: ‘Their contribution helped raise awareness of interpersonal violence against young people‘.

Prizes aside, the highlight of the event for the Forum members was meeting Sanjeev Kohli, Still Game’s Naveed, who was MC for the evening! His quote: ‘I am just a monkey in a suit’ was the group’s favourite.

The final words, quite rightly, go to the NEYPF members. “It was an emotional rollercoaster!” said Brandin, while Josh added: “It was fun and I met Navid and we came second!”

Short and sweet but says it all! Well done, NEYPF!

Be_the_Hero

A King’s ransom: joy for the Junction

Leith-based The Junction youth project has been awarded £30,000 from The King’s Fund. The Junction is the only Scottish project among ten recipients of a GSK IMPACT Award, which recognises excellence in health and wellbeing – and The Junction is one of a very select few to have won the award TWICE!

The GSK community investment programme has been running for 18 years, during which time it has awarded more than £5 million in unrestricted funding to charities across the UK. This year’s winning organisations were selected from more than 350 charities who applied for the GSK IMPACT Awards, which are run in partnership with The King’s Fund.

Winning charities are also given access to a free training and development programme and are invited to join the GSK IMPACT Awards Network. This Network offers previous winners the opportunity to develop their staff and provides a forum to share and learn from each other’s experiences and expertise.

This year’s winners will join more than 60 previous winning organisations from across the UK, who have committed to ongoing professional development, collaboration and delivering outstanding services to patients and communities.

An overall winner, who will receive an additional £10,000 in funding, will be announced at an award ceremony recognising all winners to be held at the Science Museum in London on Thursday 14 May 2015.

The winners were selected by a judging panel of health and charity experts including broadcast journalist Fiona Phillips; Gilly Green, Head of UK Grants at Comic Relief; Sir Christopher Gent, Chair of GSK; and Sir Chris Kelly, Chair of The King’s Fund.

Katie Pinnock, Director, UK & Ireland Charitable Partnerships at GSK, said: ‘These awards recognise charities that make an incredible difference to many people’s lives right across the country. The programme has grown immensely since we started in 1997, and we are extremely proud of the way it has brought people together, enabling them to share knowledge and learn from each other. Each year we are impressed, inspired and moved, not only by the innovation and talent in the work our winning charities undertake, but by the commitment and dedication of everyone involved.’

Sam Anderson, director at The Junction, said: “We are delighted at being a 2015 GSK Impact Award winner. Being a GSK Impact Award winner in 2009 provided the Junction with the platform to celebrate our strengths, develop and deepen. The 2015 GSK Impact Award offers fantastic recognition of all we have achieved in the six years since and provides us with both significant funding and development opportunities which will ensure we are able to continue to flourish.”

Lisa Weaks, Third Sector Programme Manager at The King’s Fund, said: ‘Charities provide important services and support in our health and social care system. These winners show just how much can be achieved with relatively limited funds, through the passion and dedication of the organisations and their volunteers. Their work spans the whole of our lives – they can help prevent young people from making detrimental decisions like taking up smoking, or provide support for people at the end of their lives so they can make the right decisions for them and their family. Their energy and commitment is inspirational.’

A Junction spokesperson added: “We have been named a winner of the GSK IMPACT Awards, and in fact we’re one of the rare organisations that have won twice! Not only is this a huge honour but it is a great way to recognise how The Junction has continued to strive for excellence year after year.”

The ten winners are:

Alzheimer’s Support – a charity improving diagnosis and support for people with dementia in Wiltshire
CoolTan Arts – based in Southwark, helps improve the lives of people in mental distress through creativity, self-advocacy and volunteer opportunities
Cut Films Project/Deborah Hutton Campaign – based in Islington, helps prevent smoking among young people through peer-to-peer education and campaigns
Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust – based in Islington, is the only UK charity supporting women affected by cervical cancer and cervical abnormalities and focuses activity on raising the profile and understanding of the disease and ways to prevent it
National Council for Palliative Care – a members’ organisation campaigning to help everyone approaching the end of life have the right to the highest quality care and support
Neuromuscular Centre – a Cheshire-based charity that provides physiotherapy, training and employment opportunities for those with degenerative neuromuscular conditions, as well as assistance for their carers
Off the Record – a Bristol-based charity helping young people to improve their mental health and wellbeing
RESTORE – an Oxford-based charity supporting people with mental health problems to gain or maintain employment
The Junction – this is the second award for this Leith-based charity, which helps children and young people make positive choices that promote their health and wellbeing and reduce harmful behaviour
Wave Trauma Centre – a Belfast-based charity offering care and support to anyone bereaved, injured or traumatised through the violence in Northern Ireland.

Goldenacre Fairtrade: helping the third world, helping your neighbours

We make it easy for you to buy fairtrade in north Edinburgh, and we make it easy for you to help low income families in north Edinburgh.

Help the third world, and help your neighbours!

Today (Sunday 8 Mar 2015) marks the end of Fairtrade Fortnight. What can you do, and how can you make a difference year round?

If you live in north Edinburgh, did you know that you have an award-winning fairtrade stall on your doorstep? We won two awards at the Lord Provost awards on Monday.

We’re at 280 Ferry Road, EH5 3NP http://inverleithsaintserfs.org.uk/

We sold £7,000 fairtrade products last year from our stall. We would like to do even more for third world producers, so would love if you visited our stall. We run every second Sunday, year round. Come to the 10.30 church service at Inverleith St Serf’s Church or visit afterwards (11.30-12.30) via the Clark Road entrance.

A major reason that we won the awards however, is that we are more than a fairtrade stall.

We also work with Tenants & Residents In Muirhouse (TRIM), who run a community shop and food bank in a neighbouring community. We accept food donations at every stall, and take these to the shop in Muirhouse. You can bring donations, or buy items from our stall.

So please come along today: stock up, donate, get ready for Easter with eggs and cards. All are welcome!

Edinburgh youth nominees up for awards

Edinburgh will be well represented at the annual National Youth Worker of the Year awards dinner in Glasgow next week. Five city-based nominees are among the finalists.

Citadel Youth Centre’s Karen Anderson has been nominated in the Youth Worker of the Year category and Kerry Reilly of YMCA Edinburgh is on the shortlist for Youth Work Manager of the Year. Leith-based Sikh Sanjog is in the running for Team of the Year for their Heritage Inclusion project and both Kerry Smith (Prince’s Trust)and Graeme Stewart (Police Scotland) have received nominations for their collaborative work on a programme based in Edinburgh College .

Preparations are in the final stages for this year’s event on Thursday (12 March) at the Crowne Plaza in Glasgow. Winners will be chosen in nine different categories from twenty-seven nominees and there is also a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Minister for Children and Young People Fiona McLeod MSP will present the winners with their awards. She said: “The National Youth Worker of the Year Awards are a great platform for celebrating the fantastic and often unseen work done by young people in our communities. I congratulate all twenty-seven of the selected finalists and wish all of them well ahead of the big night.”

These are the eighth annual awards and this years event will be hosted by broadcaster and DJ Arlene Stuart.

The event is sponsored by Scottish Fire and Rescue Services, One Awards, Young Scot, CLD Standards Council for Scotland, Generations Working Together, The Scottish Community Safety Network, The D of E, SQA, Youth Scotland and Education Scotland – quite a list!

YouthLink Scotland Chief Executive Jim Sweeney said: “The awards are a true celebration of our unstinting belief in our young people”.

Working together brings FairTrade awards to Goldenacre

Inverleith St Serf’s Church and Goldenacre Fairtrade won two Lord Provost of Edinburgh Fair Trade awards last night: the Fair Trade Achievement Award and Fair Trade Faith Community Award.

The awards celebrate the long term commitment to fairtrade and more recent innovations, including their support of the Muirhouse Community Shop on Pennywell Road.

Inverleith St Serf’s Church’s fairtrade connection started almost 20 years ago, with Ian and Alison Craddock at Inverleith Church and Bridgid Donald at St Serf’s Church establishing fairtrade stalls.

With the merger of the two churches into Inverleith St Serf’s Church there was an opportunity to expand the stall and provide greater choice of items for sale for members of the congregation and the wider community – the charity aim to have new items on the stall every fortnight.

The stall has been in the Traidcraft ‘Top Seller’ category for thee years and has seen orders of fairtrade items increase from £3,315 in 2010 to £7,075 in 2014, principally through Traidcraft, One World Shop and Hadeel. There has been a year on year increase in sales over this period.

The stall set up a Twitter feed early 2013 (@FairtradeStall), tweeting about fairtrade and UK and global poverty and other topical issues aimed at reaching a wider audience (e.g. local events, news, music, literature, photography). Through this social media activity the stall established a link with Tenants and Residents in Muirhouse (TRIM).

Two large donations from the stall helped TRIM during their first year (late 2013). Early in 2014 the Inverleith St Serf’s Church Kirk Session agreed to support TRIM, with retiring collections for TRIM during 2014, and food donations received by the stall going to TRIM for the foreseeable future. Half the stall’s 2014 profits will be given to TRIM.

This brings cash donations from Inverleith St Serf’s Church to TRIM to £1546.82 during 2014, going towards equipment, training and extra food purchases for the shop.

TRIM splits food donations between their foodbank and community shop. Accordingly the Inverleith St Serf’s Church congregation can use the stall to support third world producers (through purchases) and local causes (through donations).

Food donations range from tinned goods brought in from home to fairtrade items from the stall (e.g. pasta, rice, tea, fruit pots and much more). These donations are distributed right from the heart of the Muirhouse community, ensuring rapid and effective distribution to those who need them most and the link between the church and community shop has continued to grow.

The Goldenacre stall is now currently run by Graham Mackenzie – and supported by three generations of the Mackenzie family! – at Inverleith St Serf’s Church.

Goldenacre Fairtrade would be happy to discuss their innovative work with other churches, community organisations and local media.

More information about the Goldenacre Fairtrade nomination submission can be found here:

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=914215261922130&id=562886720388321

The Yard is Tesco Bank local charity of the Year

Local children’s charity The Yard is one of three childrens’ projects that will be supported by Tesco Bank over the coming year.

Tesco Bank ‘colleagues’ from each of the three Bank’s three regions choose a local children’s charity to support, and this year the lucky recipients will be:

The Yard (Edinburgh)

The Yard is a playground for children with physical disabilities or learning difficulties. It gives children space to explore, join in and make friends – things that they can be excluded from in other environments.

The large outdoor playground is a perfect place to build dens, climb trees and charge around on one of their specially adapted bikes and trikes. Indoors there is also room to paint, bake, draw, smile, chat and be with others or be alone in the calming sensory room.

The Yard’s specialist Playworkers look to encourage children and young people to explore and be themselves, promote risk and challenge to help children overcome barriers to inclusion, and nurture natural curiosity.

HOPE For Autism (North Lanarkshire)

HOPE for Autism is a charity set up by parents who didn’t feel their children’s needs were being met. They have a great understanding of what is required to support the whole family, as they have been through it themselves.

HOPE for Autism currently offers services to families affected by an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), including evening groups for children and young people, parents’ group meetings and services for carers, such as one-to-one and group support, free training and social nights.

Grace House (Sunderland)

Grace House is a purpose-built children and young person facility in Sunderland which will offer short break and respite care services for children and young people with complex disabilities, health needs and life limiting conditions.

They are presently planning to increase the number of their en-suite bedrooms to eight before their planned opening in May 2015 which will allow them to have up to eight children visiting at any one time. Eight bedrooms will allow them to help between 250-300 children every year.

Congratulations to you all!

Edinburgh College strikes gold

Gold for Edinburgh College at the College Development Network Marketing Awards

Edinburgh College scooped a top marketing award to recognise the success of a campaign to promote courses to prospective students this week.

The college won gold in the Integrated Marketing Campaign Award at the College Development Network (CDN) Marketing Awards 2015 on Wednesday (25 February), in recognition of a marketing campaign it ran to promote applications for college courses starting in January 2014.

The college also received two bronze medals at the awards, which celebrate the excellent marketing and communication practice taking place in colleges across Scotland.

The judges praised the college’s courses marketing campaign for its ‘bold creative approach and strong integration of messages and visuals tailored for different audiences’.

This campaign helped the college achieve its target for course applications and as well as the highest attendance recorded for an open day at Edinburgh College or at any of its legacy colleges.

The college also received two bronze medals in the following categories:

The Internal Communications Award, for communications around the college’s first staff conference in June 2014. The staff conference brought all the staff together to take part in workshops around the theme of innovation, covering technology, sustainability, teaching and learning, the workplace of the future and outward innovation. The judges felt the project highlighted that the college management had made a major effort to communicate with all staff appropriately to build buy-in and involvement.

The Customer Experience Award, for the college’s Centre for Creative Industries Student Employability Day. The day, which involved workshops and talks from industry professionals, was designed to develop students’ understanding of employers’ needs, give them insight into how they can make themselves as employable as possible, and promote positive destinations. The judges felt the event was well structured and that it gave the students access to industry practitioners. The project also enabled the college to engage with a number of employers.

The awards evening took place at The Caves in Edinburgh and featured two performances by the college’s HND Acting and Performance students, while attendees were treated to chocolates made by professional cookery students.

Edinburgh College interim principal Elaine McMahon said: “I am delighted that the efforts of our Marketing and Communications staff have been recognised with a gold and two bronze awards. It is satisfying to see that the judges recognised and appreciated the work put into planning and executing the extremely successful course marketing campaign, which resulted in the college meeting student recruitment targets for the year.

“It is also great to see the creative work put into supporting and communicating with staff and students recognised with two bronze awards.”

Last year, Edinburgh College achieved a silver award in the Internal Communications category and bronze in the Event category in the CDN Marketing Awards 2014.

Pictured: L-R Deborah Robertson, head of marketing, Moira Findlay, head of communications, Jon Buglass, head of the Centre of Creative Industries, and Lee-Anne Mackay, marketing manager.